d path of glittering diamonds where it led toward the low-hung
sun, far in the south. Perhaps a quarter mile in that direction lay
the white rise of a hill much larger than its fellows, probably, the
man thought, a volcano. Towards it he laboriously made his way. His
tiny figure was only a speck on the far-flung, deserted landscape--a
human mite, puny and futile against the giant, hostile white waste.

The sky was clear and cloudless, the sun unusually warm. So warm,
indeed, that long clefts, caused by the unequal expansion of the ice,
appeared here and there. The man from the plane had not gone more than
fifty yards when he halted sharply. With a crack like thunder, a
cleft had opened at his very feet--a rift ten feet deep in places,
apparently bottomless in others, and very long. Not wanting to go
around it, he slid down one side and, with an ice pick, started to
hack a foothold in the opposite bank.

It was then that the man saw the thing--something sticking from the
ice just above his head. As he stared at it, amazement appeared on his
bronzed face. He looked around bewilderedly, then peered still more
closely into the bluish depths of the crystal wall.

The head of a spear was jutting from the ice. And the spear was held
by a man entrapped within the wall.

* * * * *

The details of the ice-held figure were but slightly blurred, for it
was only a few feet from the surface. It was that of a man, and it was
plain that he was not an Eskimo. He was locked in a distorted
position, as if caught unawares by a terrific weight of sliding snow.
And he had been caught, seemingly, when in the act of hurling his
weapon.

For a long time the man from the plane peered at his discovery. Then
his blue eyes followed slowly the direction in which the spear was
pointing, and he gasped, and took a few quick steps further down the
cleft. There, in the opposite wall, were two more bodies.

These, though, were of man and woman. They were even closer to the
surface of the ice. Crouched over, the man's left hand was craned as
if to protect his companion from some peril--from the cataclysm that
had trapped them, it might have been. Or perhaps from the spear of the
other.

The fur-muffled figure stood motionless, gazing at them. His ice pick
was held limply, his eyes were wide. Then, suddenly, the pick was
grasped firmly, and flakes of ice flew under its level blows as he
started to carve his find from